Things to do with a dead Stronghold robot

Competition Rules/Strategy
1

Stronghold is a rough game. Robots die on the field. On the flip side, rarely have there been so many purposes for a dead robot.

  • According to Q&A 752, a dead robot can continue to carry boulders into the courtyard, and presumably damage defenses. (I understand that one of our rookie protegee teams used this extensively in a match where an alliance partner died).
  • I have read that dead robots have been shoved onto the batter to complete a CHALLENGE.
  • Dead robots have been shoved into the secret passage to [strIke]draw foul points[/strIke] keep the opposing alliance from stealing boulders at risk of drawing foul points. (from the If YOU were the GDC thread, which inspired this post).

How else can you legally and strategically use a dead robot on your alliance?

Edit: Oh, snap. I should have named the thread “Bring Out Your Dead!”

2

Shove them onto the batter. Contributing to the Capture is the most productive they’ll be doing.

3

Agreed. That’s what we had to do in Finals 3 at MAR Champs: https://youtu.be/ugHK6VKHq9s

4

Our robot had lost connection on the field right in front of the batter, but our alliance helped push us on for the win.
Not sure if that’s what you meant by a dead robot but this is just an example of how they can help.

5

In one match at NECMP, 1519’s partner was dead in the neutral zone. They pushed the dead robot over a defense and onto the batter, getting their alliance a capture.
That was pretty awesome.

6


You may have read now you can watch.

7

Push the dead robot from the Courtyard into the Drawbridge to hold it down.
Drive around across an easier Defense and drive over the lowered Drawbridge, pushing the dead robot as you cross.
Profit.

While being absurdly time-consuming and very difficult for a driver to complete unless the dead robot is already lined up for such, it is a viable use for a dead robot.

8

The above referenced match is one of my personal favorite matches from NECMP.

It is described in our posting for video of your team’s best match. 1519 ended up rescuing both alliance partners in that match.

This link goes directly to just before the push from the neutral zone, over the outer works, and up the batter to get the capture.

My favorite part is our driver’s “brush-by-nudge” on the outbound route to get 1058 pointed in the right direction to subsequently push over the slot 3 defense.

We ended up going to the batter much earlier than we usually would; it didn’t take as long to get 1058 onto the batter as we had expected. Pushing them onto the batter was sufficient for an extra spot in the rankings for seeding - we knew we needed the capture, as it was our last qualification match (the second-to-last qual match of the tournament.)

9

This was a fun match. We helped our partner to the batter and then scaled.

Fun starts with about 30 seconds to go. On blue side.

10

You hit the head right on the nail for dead robots. Other than sticking them on the batter I would think that blocking the secret passage would be great, especially if it means that the opposing team can’t grab from the secret passage.

Now, let’s talk about heavily damaged robots. In our first regional, our alliance captain team 5417 had dead belts and could’t drive over to defend. So what could a heavily damaged bot do?

Well If they are great at collecting balls, I would put them at the low bar and just move balls from our secret passage to the opponent’s courtyard. That paired with a powerful shooter could mean more high goals. Just a thought.